SAN ANTONIO — In prisons across Texas, members of a notorious gang with roots in San Antonio mark themselves for life with tattoos featuring icons from their native city.

Images of the Alamo, the San Antonio skyline and the city's 2-1-0 area code are favorites of local Tango Orejon members. Among the most iconic and commonly used image the Orejones wear on their skin is the logo of the hometown favorite San Antonio Spurs.

Tango Orejon is the San Antonio subset of the larger Tango Blast gang, which operates in prisons throughout Texas and ranked first on the Texas Department of Public Safety 2014 Gang Threat Assessment.

There are currently about 200 self-identifying members of Tango Orejon in the Bexar County Jail, but that number can fluctuate on a day-to-day basis, according to a gang expert with the Bexar County Sheriff's Office who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Authorities estimate the actual number to be more in the neighborhood of 500.

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"(San Antonio) is the Mecca of the Tango Orejon," the deputy said. "This is their motherland. This is where they come from. Of course, we are going to have a bigger impact from them knowing that this gang is so notorious within the prison."

The gang takes their name from the Spanish word for having big ears, the idea being that the members are trouble-makers who have been pulled by the ear a time or two, according to some accounts.

Tango Blast has an estimated 14,000 to 17,000 members within the Texas prison system, but the exact number remains unknown, the deputy said.

Tango Blast began with the objective of giving protection to individuals in the prison system who didn’t want to affiliate with gangs that were already formed, like the Mexican Mafia or Texas Syndicate, both of which are considered blood-in, blood-out organizations.

“Once you come into (that type of) gang, with the knowledge and the work that you do, the things that you see, that gang would not feel secure that you can get out and not speak about it or talk about it and incriminate anyone within the gang,” the deputy said. “Therefore, you can’t get out. If you try to get out, they have some sort of repercussion. More than likely, you’re going to die.”

That’s not the case for Tangos. Once you get out of prison, you are basically your own person again, he said, adding that members do not have to follow orders, check in, pay taxes or attend meetings like some other groups.

The Tangos are unlike other prison gangs in that they do not have a hierarchy or constitution that all members are required to follow, nor do they discriminate based on race, creed or where a member is from.

What they do have is numbers.

“They don’t care about beliefs, they don’t care about rank, all they care about is numbers. The bigger the number, the better chance they have against any gang in the prisons,” the deputy, who spent years working within the TDCJ before joining the Sheriff’s Office, said.

While Tango Orejon is active within the Bexar County Jail, members are only allowed to join the gang in prison, according to authorities familiar with the gang's activity.

Tangos were established by inmates from Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin, according to the 2014 Gang Threat Assessment.

“These original Tangos collectively became known as the Four Horsemen and still band together for protection in the correctional setting,” the document states. “The Texas Department of Criminal Justice designated the Four Horsemen as ‘Puro Tango Blast.’"

More Tangos were established over time throughout the state, and while not all are directly affiliated with Puro Tango Blast, they share a common culture, and are considered a part of the larger Tango group, the assessment explains.

These groups, or cliques, include the Tango Orejon, or “Orejones” of San Antonio, the Vallucos of the Valley, Corpitos out of Corpus Christi and others.

“From what I know it originated in the late 80s,” the sheriff’s deputy said of Tango Orejon. “But talking to several gang members, they have told me that it was around before that, into the 70s. They used to call themselves Orejones. There was no Tango, there was no Tango Blast. Orejones were just a gang that originated within the prison for people who were from San Antonio to protect each other.

Originally, he said, they actually were working with the Mexican Mafia, but something happened along the line where the Tangos didn’t want to take orders.

They were considered something akin to crash-test dummies, he explained. They were doing the dirty work for the Mexican Mafia and taking all the heat.

Some Tangos will wear tattoos depicting a modified or distrorted Aztec calendar, a common tatto for members of the Mexican Mafia. In many cases, this is viewed as a sign of disrespect toward the gang.

According to the deputy, Tangos have become such a force, they can rival any gang in Texas.

“Hearing from other gangs, no one really like these guys,” he said. “Another tattoo that they mark themselves with is ‘most hated.’ That says it all right there.”